


Thirteen

by Umbrella_ella



Series: Holding On and Letting Go [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina Mills has cancer, and it fucking sucks. Emma Swan visits her in treatment because, hey, she's bored. Sometimes Regina kidnaps Emma when no one's looking, and maybe they're friends.</p><p>This is not a love story, except that it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildImaginings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildImaginings/gifts).



> Be prepared: get your tissues, your tea, your cat, whatever comforts you.

_December 2 nd _

The snow has just begun to fall outside, and Regina lets her eyes drift from the consulting doctor, his gaze compassionate, and she wonders if he practices that look in the mirror before he comes to work every day.

It can’t be easy, telling someone they have cancer.

_Cancer._

The word hits her like a semi truck, and she can’t breathe for a moment. Regina fists her woolen skirt between her fingers, and her hands almost cramp with the effort of holding on, but she watches the snow fall in fat, twirling flakes and wishes she could be anywhere but here.

Regina looks back at the doctor, his receding hairline even redder in the white light of a too-bright sky. The room is almost bare, save for the desk that separates her from the good doctor. He smiles, then, his lips moving around words of compassion and genuine heartbreak, and she swallows, the buzzing in her ears growing louder with each passing second.

She blinks, and she can focus.

“… stage IIA, it is treatable.”

Her stomach flips and she wants to be sick.

“How?” Her voice is too loud, too firm, and she winces.

“At this point, probably chemotherapy. Surgery first, though.”

Her mouth is dry, and she stops listening.

_January 13 th_

Emma is bored. Capital B. Seriously, utterly bored. She’d gotten sick of Storybrooke General’s daily rotation of soap operas, game shows, and late-night dramas three months ago.

It’s too quiet in the cancer ward, always too quiet. She’d witnessed her roommate’s family bursting into tears upon arrival a week ago. It was mildly exciting, but according to the nurses, it must have been _too_ exciting, because they hadn’t been back since.

 _Boredboredboredbored_. So very, incredibly bored. Her nails are too short to make any more progress on peeling back the rest of the button on the side of the bed she’s relegated to, so she traces the button with her fingertip, a smirk of wry amusement on her lips when she presses the button. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Her amusement is short lived, though, and she lets out a growl, pushing her head back into her pillow. The scratchy pillowcase aggravates the skin of her scalp, and she stops.

“Fuck!” The word is sharp, harsh, and she claps a hand over her mouth in surprise. She’d forgotten about her roommate.

Emma flicks off the television with a derisive snort, just as David and Kathryn kiss, professing their undying love for one another only moments before the familiar closing credits of Days of Our Lives trawl across the screen.

Huffing in frustration, she lifts herself up, wincing slightly as her IV digs the wrong way. How she, of all people, who hated hospitals, had ended up as a resident patient, she’d never figure out. Still, the food isn’t half bad and the complementary socks are fluffy. She hasn’t been downstairs in a month, and she’s itching for some adventure.

Emma listens through the curtains, and the soft breaths, even and shallow, tell her that Granny is asleep. She almost laughs out loud when she realizes that she doesn’t even know her roommate’s real name. Hissing, she pauses when the squeaking of her IV drip fills the quiet air, and she prays to someone that her roommate doesn’t wake. When the breathing behind the curtain remains even and slow, Emma continues past her roommate’s bed, casting a glance in the direction of the other patient.

Pictures are taped to the bottom of the bedframe, and a couple of framed photos are displayed proudly on the old woman’s wheeled nightstand. Though the wood is shabby and worn in places, like Emma’s own standard issue nightstand, but it’s much fuller than her own. Outside of a half-drunk bottle of water next to her phone, her own is bare. It’s only when she catches a glimpse of a young girl with her hands looped around Granny’s neck, her face pressed into the crook her neck, beaming up at the camera as Granny hugs her back, that Emma turns away from the photographs, feeling like she’s invaded some sacred, private thing.

Her drip is blessedly quiet as she wheels down the hall. It’s lunchtime, and Emma figures they’ll find her bed empty in a few minutes. She picks up the pace a little bit, not bothering to close her gown behind her. Her bony ass has looked better, and if people want to check out her standard issue hospital underwear, then good for them. There’s nothing left to look at anyways.

The elevator dings, and she shuffles quickly past the nurses station, which is blessedly empty, save for Mary Margaret, who knows about her excursions. Mary Margaret grins and waves, simply calling out, “Rotation is in an hour. Be back by then.”

“Thanks, M&M, I’ll be here tomorrow, so make sure you drop by.”

The young nurse rolls her eyes in reply, and Emma continues down the hall, past the tacky wallpaper that makes Emma think of those restaurants that had never updated their décor after the early 90’s. The elevator sticks on the third floor, and as such, Emma has to wait awkwardly next to a family of four who keep staring at her like she has a disease. Well, she does, but—

“It’s not like you’ll catch it, people. Christ,” Emma mumbles as the elevator slides open. The shocked man, his two daughters, and what Emma assumes is their mother, don’t follow her.

Her journey to the basement is short, only interrupted on the second floor, where a phlebotomist gets in, her cart creaking slightly as she edges it over the lip of the elevator. The girl is young, maybe twenty, Emma guesses, and outside of a tentative smile, neither Emma nor creaky-cart phlebotomist communicate anymore, because what the hell do you say to someone who’s got cancer, right?

When Emma finally, blessedly, hits the basement, she lets creaky-cart go first, and then follows, the ties of her gown tickling at her back. She has to rest halfway there, and luckily Storybrooke General had gotten a nice fat sum of money from a donor (read; Rumford Gold for treatment of his wife’s neurological disorder), and had decided railings were a good idea. The cafeteria is bustling, Emma can hear it from where she stands, and a few employees pass her, all chatting amicably about the latest paper on how to treat brain tumors. One of them shoves a burrito into his mouth and talks around his massive bite, rice and beans clearly visible, even from where Emma stands.

With the assistance of the hand rails, Emma makes the rest of the journey in ten minutes, a new record. Entering the treatment room, she sighs, making to flop down in her chair. Expect she can’t. Because someone took it.

A very pretty someone.

“What the fuck, dude?” Emma says, and clearly, the woman is a first timer, because her eyes widen, even as Moe and Leroy snigger, the hum of the machinery the only sound in the room.

The brunette tries to stand, but becomes aware of the IV in her arm. She’s clearly flustered, a rosy blush creeping up her neck.

“I’m so, so sorry, I—” the woman says, and Emma is unexpectedly breathless at hearing the voice, sultry and deeper, and Emma wonders if she’s used to being the new kid. She blames her inability to breathe on the fact that she’d made the trip from her room to the center in fifteen minutes.

“No, seriously,” Emma tries to remedy the situation, offering a placating gesture, her palm raised, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I mean, I _do_ sit there, but I’m not… I don’t do chemo. Not anymore.”

Emma hates that the brunette woman lets her eyes flit up to Emma’s bald head, and they lower quickly, ashamed. Emma takes a seat next to her, her eyes slipping closed at the blessed relief of being able to just _sit_ for a moment.

“Hey, Em!” A bubbly voice reaches her ears, and Emma turns, smiling. “Hey, Astrid!”

Astrid’s smiling up from her paperwork, not bothering to answer the phone as she offers a few moments of casual conversation, and Emma almost smiles.

Emma almost smiles, and she almost forgets.

The voice, that very nice voice, pipes up from her other side, and the brush of warm skin against her arm has her turning away from Astrid to look at her neighbor.

“I’m Regina.”

“Emma,” she offers, taking the outstretched hand in her own, her own fingers feeling too brittle in the warmth of the proffered hand.

Regina tucks an errant strand of her hair behind the shell of her hair, and Emma smiles.

“Look, Regina, you’re new at this, I can tell. Let me give you some advice. Shave your hair before it falls out. It’s much cooler that way. Wear sweats from now on, because you will feel like shit,” Emma says, letting her eyes ghost over the other woman’s attire, which is power-suity and way too attractive and nice for something as disgusting as chemo, “and definitely bring a book. It’s fucking boring, and you do not want to talk to these losers.”

Emma grins and gestures to the other two occupants in the room.

“If they’re losers, then what does that make you?” Regina grins, and the spark in her eyes tells Emma that she’s not backing down.

“A slightly hotter, more experienced loser.” Emma grins.

Regina laughs then, and the pair fall into a slightly comfortable silence, only broken by the odd comment here and there, and it’s like maybe they’re sitting next to one another on the subway, except they’re in a hospital and they have cancer and everything is just terrible.

_February 25 th _

Regina and Emma meet at least once a week for over a month, and they’ve built a tenuous bond, rarely tested by offerings about their personal lives, but when Emma sees Regina greet a young boy at the door, his brown hair smoothing down beneath Regina’s palm, Emma’s chest aches a little.

But when Regina brings him in, she’s sure the woman is fucking crazy. You don’t introduce your kid to people who have cancer.

She does, though, and Henry’s smile could probably cure world hunger, and Emma looks up at Regina, and she can see she’s just so damn proud of her son and Emma hates it a little.

Henry is cute, maybe nine, and Emma smiles in all of the right places when he pulls out his favorite fairy tale book, pointing out all of the pictures on each individual page. Even Leroy laughs a little when the kid grins up at Emma, eagerly pointing out her resemblance to a princess in one of the stories.

Emma does her best to keep up with the kid’s enthusiasm, but around page forty, she can feel her eyes starting to drift closed, and Regina tugs Henry away with an insistent hand, and Emma smiles up at Regina, who runs her hand across her blue bandana sheepishly before stuttering out an apology.

“Don’t worry. It’s fine. Hey, um, if you wanted to maybe bring him by sometime, I’d like the company. I’m on the fifth floor, 520.”

Regina nods, and whispers a goodbye before leaving, Henry in tow.

_March 5 th_

When Henry comes to visit her, Regina sits cross-legged in the lone chair, very nearly scolding her son as he clambers up onto Emma’s bed to hug her, but when Emma winces, Regina’s face darkens.

“Henry, get down,” Regina’s voice is sharp, and for a moment, Emma can see the powerful businesswoman Regina hides during her time with Emma, “I’m sorry, Emma.”

“No, don’t be, kid’s excited, it’s okay,” Emma smiles, but from the frown that refuses to vacate Regina’s face, she’s sure that maybe her smile had come across as more of a grimace. Regina’s looking out across the city, and Emma smiles. “Pretty, isn’t it?” Emma’s voice jolts a little as Henry bounces on the bed a bit, torso wiggling with excitement.

“Yeah, yeah, it is. I’d never thought about what it looked like from all the way up here, though. Does it make you sad?” Regina asks without thinking, her fingers sliding against the glass of the giant pane, as if tracing the outline of the distant horizon, tinged pink with the glow of the setting sun. The chair creaks as Regina sits forward, and Emma watches carefully as Regina’s lips, red with lipstick, part minutely, the pink of her tongue barely visible from between her teeth as she wets her lips.

Emma feels her cheeks heat, and studies the pattern of the blanket on her lap instead, where Henry’s taken to counting the dots on it.

“What do you mean?” Emma eventually says, and she wishes her voice was a little calmer.

“I mean, you can’t see it, you can’t go down there. Doesn’t it feel unfair, don’t you feel like you’re missing out?” The question falls from Regina’s lips before she thinks, and Emma can tell exactly when Regina’s mind catches up with her mouth, her mouth opening in an ‘o’, dark eyes widening comically.

“I didn’t—”

“Regina, it’s okay, you didn’t mean it.” Emma reassures, trying to put as much sincerity into the tone of her voice and upturn of her lips as she can muster.

Regina fidgets for the rest of the hour, and they sit in silence until a knock sounds at the door, signaling dinner. When Emma lifts the lid from her tray, the brown plastic clattering noisily as it meets the wheely table in front of her, Regina rises from her chair to grab it before it falls.

Emma takes the lid from Regina, and squeezes the woman’s soft hand reassuringly.

Regina doesn’t bother to let go for a long minute, and Emma revels in the warmth of the solid grip of her hand.

“Can I have your peas, Emma?” Henry asks, and Emma grins, letting go.

_March 30 th _

Emma has barely sat down in her customary seat right next to Regina before the brunette speaks, the words pushing eagerly into the space between them.

“What if I kidnapped you on the tenth?”

Emma stares. Regina’s eyes are wide, hopeful, and very, very sparkly. It’s a thing they do— it’s also a thing that Emma cannot resist. She suspects Regina knows this. The sparklage is on full blast today, and Emma sighs.

“ _What_?”

“I want to show you the city, Emma,” Regina starts, lips quirking in a smile, “I want to show you what I see every day.”

“Does that make you the prince, coming to rescue me from my tower?” Emma jokes, and Regina blushes, her eyes lowering to the tie on her fluffy green robe Henry had bought her for chemo days.

“And if it does?” Regina answers, voice trembling only minutely, her tone low.

Emma grins, and pulls Henry’s book onto her lap, flipping through a few pages before looking up at Regina, who’s face is so full of hope and light and everything good and _goddamit—_

“Where are we going?”

If Astrid hears them plotting that day, eagerly sketching out plans and thinking up places Emma would like to visit, she doesn’t let on.

_April 10 th _

The jailbreak is at six in the morning, when night shift is clearing up for the head of the day shift, Ashley and her crew, and Emma is wheeled out of the hospital in the nicest pair of sweatpants Regina could find and the biggest pair of sunglasses Henry could find. Emma’s pretty sure Granny’s just pretending to sleep to cover for her later.

Regina’s car is a bit too tall for Emma to get in easily, and Regina has to lift Emma a bit, and Emma’s fairly sure that Regina’s hands linger a little too long to be considered just helping, but Emma doesn’t comment.

They look like a pair of hooligans, cackling all the way down the road away from the hospital, driving into the city, and Emma isn’t sure she’s had this much fun in a very, very long time.

They visit a museum that Regina insists on, where Emma deems most of the art “ridiculous” and one piece “horrendous, like, what the fuck is that, spaghetti sauce?”, and when the guard asks them to leave, Regina takes her hand and drags her away. Neither of them bother to let go until they manage to walk the three blocks to the car. They eat hot dogs on the way and Emma laughs a little too hard, and Regina smiles a bit too much.

Emma decides that the tiny park on the corner of Second and Parker is the best place to stop, and the two women cross the open field to the lone bench overlooking a small pond. Bubbles of air rise to the surface, and Emma smiles when she sees the koi fish. Regina grins and talks about Henry’s latest science test, and how they’d learned about how fish migrate, and Emma’s pretty sure that koi fish don’t migrate, but she listens to Regina anyway, basking in the sound of her voice.

Regina’s bandana flutters a little in the breeze, and Emma pulls her own woolen beanie around her ears.

“I was twenty-four when I found out I had cancer,” she offers, and she can see that Regina’s face is tilted towards her slightly, smile falling, “I’m thirty now, and I was in remission for exactly two years before they called me again.”

Regina covers Emma’s hand with her own, tightening her grip when Emma presses her fingers to Regina’s.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s the cards we draw. We’re the _chosen_ ones, Regina. We get to handle all of this shit and it’s unfair and I’m— I’m dying,” Emma closes her eyes, unwilling to see Regina pull away. Instead she feels the heat of Regina’s body pressing into her side, inching closer.

“I’m dying,” she repeats, and suddenly Regina is very, very close now, and Emma feels tears spilling onto her cheeks and she’s angry and sad and _dying._

“I’m dying, Regina,” Emma says, her lips a mere inch or so from Regina’s, “I’m dying. Please don’t.”

“Live a little, then,” Regina whispers, “before you die.”

Regina tastes like everything good and everything Emma wants. The kiss is cool in the spring air, and Emma shivers.

Regina tastes like strawberries, and happiness and like maybe everything’s okay, and Emma’s kissing her back and somewhere along the line, Regina’s cradling her head, her fingers pressing to the base of her skull and Regina’s coat is soft in Emma’s hands as she clutches at the fabric and Emma doesn’t want this to end.

They separate with a pop, and Emma presses her lips together, the waxy feel of Regina’s lipstick still on Emma’s mouth, and Emma imagines that she can still taste her.

_April 20 th _

Emma’s forgotten what the bad days feel like. Her mistake. She shouts at Henry, and she’s never felt worse than that. Henry looks up at her with such a forgiving face, and Emma hates his face.

Except she doesn’t.

Emma’s tired, and she apologizes to Regina about a million times between the mechanical hiss of the pain pump and the heady rush of sleep.

When she wakes next, it’s dark, and Henry’s nestled into her side, and Regina’s asleep on the chair, neck crooked, mouth agape. Emma watches her sleep for a few minutes, deciding that Regina is gorgeous like that, and fumbles for the disposable camera that Regina had brought three weeks ago, when she’d seen that Emma didn’t have photos of her own.

She snaps a photo, and smiles when Regina shifts, her bandana slipping slightly as she tucks her feet further under herself.

Henry snuffles then, and cuddles into Emma more, and Emma sets the camera down next to Henry’s science test that reads _100%, Great job, Henry!_ and works on falling back asleep.

Mary Margaret slips into the room just then, interrupting her quest for sleep, gesturing to the clock on the wall.

8:00 PM. Emma shakes Henry awake and Regina awakens, brow furrowing slightly.

“Oh, no, I meant to stay awake with you, Emma.” Regina offers, but Emma shakes her head.

Regina frowns as she gathers her things, and she’s halfway out the door before she turns on her heel, and Emma tilts her head.

“Forget something?”

Regina scrambles in her purse a little, triumphantly holding out a small frame to Emma. She takes it and studies the faces before her. Henry’s smiling, mouth open mid laugh and Regina’s smiling at her son. They’re in a park, and the grainy photograph tells Emma that it’s been taken with a camera phone. She loves it.

She looks up at Regina, who’s smiling, in askance.

“For your bad days.” Regina grins, and Emma meets her kiss with as much emotion as she can, pouring all of the thanks into her kiss.

_May 16 th _

Regina gets the phone call in the afternoon.

She’s waiting to pick up Henry in the parking lot of his school, fingers drumming along with the subtle bass of whatever song is on the radio when her cell phone rings.

It’s Mary Margaret. Regina can’t stop shaking.

“Emma… She’s getting worse.”

Regina and Henry visit that afternoon, and they commandeer two of the few cots that the hospital has to offer, and if the springs are bound to give Regina a backache the next morning, she doesn’t say a word. Instead, she falls asleep holding Emma’s hand in hers.

_May 27 th _

“I love you, Emma,” Regina whispers, acutely aware of Henry’s still sleeping form a mere foot away.

Emma’s nestled into her, and Regina is laying on her side, and she’s not sure if Emma can hear her or not, but Emma’s lips tickle her neck when they press against the flesh. Regina’s fingers are tangled with Emma’s and she presses a kiss against Emma’s bare scalp. It's dawn, and the lights of the city give way to the sunrise, orange light bathing them both in a comforting glow.

“I know. Me too. I love you too.”

“Please don’t leave.”

Emma laughs, a mere huff of breath, and it warms Regina’s skin.

“I’ll try not to.”

Regina presses a kiss to Emma’s temple.

“You don’t get to leave. You don’t have permission to die, Swan.”

Emma doesn’t say anything, and it’s only the steady puffs of breath against her neck that keep Regina calm.

_May 30 th _

“I love you, Henry. I love you so… much, baby.” Henry’s chin is wobbling, tears streaming down his reddened face. Emma’s been moved to a private room, and she’s stroking his face, wiping the tears away as quick as they come. Her eyes are sunken, red-rimmed from crying, and they flutter shut, snapping open at the little boy’s next words.

“I love you too, mommy,” the boy warbles out without hesitation, and Regina presses a kiss to Emma’s forehead.

Regina lets her lips linger there.

“I love you, Em.”

Emma doesn’t say it back.

_April 15 th_

Regina runs her hand through her short hair, not quite long enough to style yet, and sighs. Henry’s hand pauses over the sign in paper before scratching out something decidedly.

The walk is due to start in an hour, and the large crowd of people is pressing in around her. Henry joins her then, and they line up at the start line, clusters of groups laughing and chattering, and there’s one woman who’s dressed in black, a wedding ring displayed proudly on a chain around her neck.

“What was that about, Henry?”

“What?”

“When you paused.” Regina stretches, her calves aching in trepidation.

Henry looks up her from beneath the brim of his baseball cap, shrugging.

“The paper asked who we were running for, and I put for Emma.”

“For Emma.” Regina repeats, and her heart skips a beat then.

_For Emma._


End file.
